Hans Christian Andersen, born on 2 April 1805, in Odense, near Copenhagen, Denmark,
was a Danish master of the literary fairy tale whose stories achieved wide
renown. He is also the author of plays, novels, poems, travel books, and
several autobiographies. While many of those works are almost unknown outside Denmark,
his fairy tales are among the most frequently translated works in all of
literary history.
Andersen, who was born to poor parents, fought the
rigid class structure of his time throughout his life. The first significant
help came from Jonas
Collin, one of the directors of the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, to which
Andersen had gone as a youth in the vain hope of winning fame as an actor.
Collin raised money to send him to school. Although school was an unhappy
experience for Andersen because of an unpleasant headmaster, it allowed him to
be admitted to the University of Copenhagen in 1828.
The next year Andersen produced what is considered
his first important literary work, Fodrejse fra Holmens Kanal til
Østpynten af Amager i aarene 1828 og 1829 (1829; “A Walk from
Holmen’s Canal to the East Point of the Island of Amager in the Years 1828
and 1829”), a fantastic tale in the style of the German Romantic writer
E.T.A. Hoffmann. This self-published work was an immediate success. He then
turned to playwriting. After some unsuccessful attempts, he achieved
recognition for Mulatten (1840;
“The Mulatto”), a play portraying the evils of slavery. The theatre,
however, was not to become his field, and for a long time Andersen was regarded
primarily as a novelist. Most of his novels are autobiographical; among the
best-known are Improvisatoren (1835; The Improvisatore), O.T. (1836; OT: A Danish Romance), and Kun en
spillemand (1837; Only a
Fiddler).
Andersen’s first book of tales, Eventyr,
fortalte for børn (1835; “Tales, Told for Children”), included
stories such as “The Tinderbox,” “Little Claus and Big Claus,” “The Princess
and the Pea,” and “Little Ida’s Flowers.” Two further installments of stories
made up the first volume of Eventyr (1837);
a second volume was completed in 1842, and to these was added Billedbog uden billeder (1840; A Picture-book Without Pictures). New collections
appeared in 1843, 1847, and 1852. The genre was expanded in Nye eventyr og historier (1858–72; “New Fairy
Tales and Stories”).
These collections broke new ground in both style and
content. A real innovator in his method of telling tales, Andersen used the idioms
and constructions of the spoken language, thus breaking with literary
tradition. While some of his tales exhibit an optimistic belief in the ultimate
triumph of goodness and beauty (e.g., “The Snow Queen”), others are deeply
pessimistic and end unhappily. Indeed, one reason for Andersen’s great appeal
to both children and adults is that he was not afraid of introducing feelings
and ideas that were beyond a child’s immediate comprehension, yet he remained
in touch with the child’s perspective. He combined his natural storytelling
abilities and great imaginative power with universal elements of folk legend
to produce a body of fairy tales that relates to many cultures.
It may also be noted that part of what makes some of
the tales so compelling is Andersen’s identification with the unfortunate and
the outcast. A strong autobiographical element runs through his sadder tales;
throughout his life he perceived himself as an outsider, and, despite the
international recognition he received, he never felt completely accepted. He
suffered deeply in some of his closest personal relationships.
Andersen
began receiving a government stipend in the late 1830s that gave him financial
stability, and his fairy tales started achieving wide popularity in Europe,
particularly in Germany, at about the same time. From 1831 to 1873 Andersen
spent a good deal of his time traveling throughout Europe, Asia
Minor, and Africa, and his impressions are recorded in a number of travel
books, notably En
digters bazar (1842; A Poet’s
Bazaar), I Sverrig (1851; Pictures of
Sweden), and I Spanien (1863; In Spain). Because Andersen rarely destroyed anything he wrote, his
diaries and thousands of his letters are extant.
